‼️ RHYTHM GAME WEEKLY SUMMARY 🧵 (May 31st - Jun 6th) ‼️ Stage Tour goes on tour! A third VARIANT GATE opens in SDVX! Taiko's Dan-i Dojo is renewed! And... GITAROO MAN in the big 2026?!?! Let's take a look at what happened this week in rhythm games! 🧵
Five Fret Games are BACK! Stage Tour was shown off at IGN Live 2026, with a closed alpha and a new trailer! The trailer shows a small portion of songs such as Get the Funk Out (Extreme), Square Hammer (Ghost), Island in the Sun (Weezer), and more! #StageTour
It was confirmed that Stage Tour is coming to Consoles and PC, with a Campaign mode modeled after roguelites, Quickplay, Practice Mode, and Judgements Mode. There will be hardware too, with a guitar controller collab with Kramer, a modular Drum Kit, and microphones! #StageTour
The gates of variance open before you. SOUND VOLTEX NABLA reveals and releases the third chapter of the VARIANT GATE unlock event. Five FLOOR contest artists, five songs, with one at the end to stand above the rest. Do you dare break the ancient seal…? #SDVX
For those unfamiliar, VARIANT GATE works a little something like this: Clear songs with harder gauges to fill the VARIANT POWER bar (even more with BLASTER START/PASS), challenge a trial song on EX-TRACK, and clear with RANK V or fail to knock it down a rank next time. #SDVX
With the new version comes a renewed UI for the unlock system, along with changes to maintain power upon failing and allow for VARIANT POWER gain without MAXXIVE RATE (hooray for U-Region! though you still need BLASTER START to access the gate) 📸: @/white_marmot
Once all four gate songs have been unlocked and cleared, the final trial and new Lv 20 is revealed as a challenge to the player… that being ΔLI∇E by 打打だいず, featuring the return of Satan-P*L-Iblis as its signature character! #SDVX
And now, a word from our sponsors. SOUND VOLTEX Konaste Song Pack Vol.27 is now on sale, featuring all the BPL S5 theme and final round songs including the devilish KISKIL-LILLA! Purchase it by 7/6 to get a special edition e-amusement pass of the No→to girls~ #SDVX
The 25th Anniversary festivities continue in Taiko no Tatsujin's latest news drops! Many major updates and song drops were revealed here to be released over the coming weeks, so lets break them all down! #太鼓の達人 #taiko765
First up: A new season means new Don Medal rewards! Three songs and one Inner Oni chart enter the Summer 2026 Don Medal Shop, including the great big cosMo@暴走P vs かねこちはる song! Songs and Inner Oni charts from the Autumn 2024 Don Medal Shop are also now free for all~
Next, it's SONG CONTEST TIME!!! The Taiko no Tatsujin Music Recruitment 2026 contest opens submissions on 6/15, with an Under-25 division and guest judges available this time around! Get your bachi and DTM software ready…
As for 25th anniversary contents… We've got even more 25th Anniversary titles for IC Card holders to claim until the end of a year, and a special original anniversary song from… PinocchioP?!?! That's right, it's シャニムニ花火!
And to wrap it all up… The Dan-i Dojo 2026 season has begun! Tenth Dan features the aforementioned 鈍響ライクリフド (cosMo@暴走P vs かねこちはる), but clearing it causes a scary screen transition that reveals ANOTHER boss song… 活声ライクリフド!!! 📸: @/taikonotatyujin
Before Elite Beat Agents and Tetote Connect, Liona fka iNIS made their mark with Gitaroo Man on the PS2. Made in collab with band COIL & illustrator Mitsuru Nakamura its striking graphic novel visuals & alt-rock sound gained a cult following despite an infamously low print run...
Now for the first time since the 2006 PSP port, Gitaroo Man is being reissued as part of PS+ Classics as announced in last week's State of Play. You can expect to pick this up for around $10USD or as part of the PS+ Premium tier on PS4/5 via decent upscaled PS2 emulation.
If this is your first introduction to Gitaroo Man, Lost in Cult's editorial director @[email protected] wrote a lovely retrospective piece for Eurogamer 13 (!) years ago www.eurogamer.net/gitaroo-man-...

Gitaroo Man retrospective
Gitaroo Man retrospective

Gitaroo Man is a game that could only have been made by people with a deep, deep love of music. But it's not just a lov…

Eurogamer.net
Hot off being previewed at PLAYX4, Aragami (xi) from the BMS event G2R2014 comes to PLATiNA :: LAB Jun 10th! ∀NOMALY (Camellia) from the C.H.S-produced compilation album WE ARE THE BOSS is being added too! #PLATiNA_LAB
PON & Shiranui Flare team up for a new original song for pop'n music High☆Cheers!! Vi∀'s LIGHT and NORMAL charts are playable immediately with harder charts unlockable in ポップ君大会. #popn
Hear those wedding bells? ピカピカポップンボックスvol.6 is celebrating June weddings and rainy days with playfield customizations featuring DEBORAH, Risette, SHOKO, and more! 300¥ a roll!
めと(Metomate)makes his non-collab debut in GITADORA GALAXY WAVE DELTA with the track 不可逆のモルタ! This is another 超聴力!ギタドラドンARENA♪ unlock, you'll get little snippets of tracks to hunt down and play in order to reveal the unlock! #GITADORA
The time is now, forever… The Diachronic Resonance Album is available NOW in Rizline! Play through three songs (two originals!) by Zris, Xomu, Drazically, and ZxNX in the 16th track series of Rizline! #Rizline
Plant your feet and FIGHT! Phigros will update on the 12th! Two songs will be added to the game, Cleyera (Riya) and 70 Minute Fighters (katagiri)! It's not actually 70 minutes long, right? #Phigros
Forgive me, Nadia… Solo mode arrives in TAKUMI³'s DUEL³ mode!! Take on characters with custom strengths and weaknesses or share Ghost IDs to play against opponents' past scores and skills! #TAKUMI_Cubic
And of course, here are this month's event revivals… along with a new Limit Break Challenge season! #TAKUMI_Cubic
A rather large asterisk, to be clear… Asterika, a novel grid-based rhythm game, has a demo out NOW! Several charts are featured for all to play, along with a preview of the story! Cute girls? Cool gameplay? It all clicks! Check it out before it leaves on 6/15! #Asterika
Bleap returns to nature… literally! Check it out: a new character, Yuan Xi! This handsome fellow lives in the Wanderwood, and will be your guide to a new story mode map. Also: teasers for a pack coming this month! #Bleap
QQQBeat summer with these groovy updates! On the 11th, Groove Coaster Future Performers will receive a summer update! Three summer looks for female cast members, and three new songs! And right NOW, QQQBeats has four new songs to shoot beats to! #GrooveCoaster #QQQBeats